In this article, "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a highly respected and widely published doctor from the University of Louisiana, discusses two diseases which he claims are unique to African Americans.

One is his newly-discovered "Drapetomania," a disease which causes slaves to run away;

the other, "Dysaethesia Aethiopica," a disease causing "rascality" in black people free and enslaved.

Cartwright described the disorder — which, he said, was "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers"[5] — in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana[6] that was widely reprinted.

He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals.[7]

In Diseases and Pecularities of the Negro Race, Cartwright writes that the Bible calls for the slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away.[8]

In addition to identifying drapetomania, Cartwright prescribed a remedy to cure the malady.

His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented."[5]

In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause" — a warning sign of imminent flight — Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure."[9][10][11]

Dysaethesia Aethiopica

Dysaethesia Aethiopica was a psychiatric[1] disease described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 which proposed a theory for the cause of laziness among slaves.

Found exclusively among Blacks, dysaethesia aethiopica — "called by overseers 'rascality'" — was characterized by partial insensitivity of the skin and "so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep."[4]

Other symptoms included "lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms."[5][6]

Cartwright noted that the existence of dysaethesia aethiopica was "clearly established by the most direct and positive testimony," but other doctors had failed to notice it because their "attention [had] not been sufficiently directed to the maladies of the negro race."[4]

According to Cartwright, dysaethesia aethiopica was "much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc."
— indeed, according to Cartwright, "nearly all [free negroes] are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them."[7]

Cartwright felt that dysaethesia aethiopica was "easily curable, if treated on sound physiological principles."[8] Insensitivity of the skin was one symptom of the disease, so the skin should be stimulated:

The best means to stimulate the skin is, first, to have the patient well washed with warm water and soap; then, to anoint it all over in oil, and to slap the oil in with a broad leather strap; then to put the patient to some hard kind of work in the sunshine.[8]

Vanessa Jackson has noted that lesions were a symptom of dysaethesia aethiopica and "the ever-resourceful Dr. Cartwright determined that whipping could ... cure this disorder. Of course, one wonders if the whipping were not the cause of the 'lesions' that confirmed the diagnosis."[9]

According to Cartwright, after the prescribed "course of treatment" the slave will "look grateful and thankful to the white man whose compulsory power ... has restored his sensation and dispelled the mist that clouded his intellect."

you know... this is just begging for some ignorant person to run in and yell about how these diseases are real and how PC culture has prevented people from stating the truth... you know... the ann coulter type

The best means to stimulate the skin is, first, to have the patient well washed with warm water and soap; then, to anoint it all over in oil, and to slap the oil in with a broad leather strap; then to put the patient to some hard kind of work in the sunshine.[8]

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and

In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause" — a warning sign of imminent flight — Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure."[9][10][11]

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-DEAD-

I'm sorry, this shit is hilarious. What the hell was his answer to a head cold? Elbow the negro in the nose? I'm mad he said "whip the devil out of him".

You need a perscription for that? "Yassuh, boss! I'se heah for 40 milligrams of asswhoopin' and olive oil scrub!"

as if the entire human experience of science has an intrinsically racist motive behind it

smh

if anything, attempting to classify affairs scientifically lends credibility to the idea that that people look at science as if it was an all-explaining religion. that, in itself, is dangerous and is something I have long since spoke against, (Look up the Sokal Affair!) even at the detriment of ideologies that exploit the clout of science to their own ends. (Socialism, Scientology, etc.)

on a side note, science WILL come up with answers that will offend your culture. my advice is to deal with it, faggots.

For example, scientifically speaking, what Europeans did to Africans was culturally terrifying, but genetically advantageous. They separated them from their otherwise homogeneous gene sharing (average African travel was no more than a handful of miles per LIFETIME) , allowed them to spread genes to the wide variance of tribal ethnicities as they were all collected into a single society, culled the weak with hundreds of years of hard labor, and then allowed this genetically-unique, psychologically-customized population to participate in the civilization they helped create. That is scientifically accurate, yet, my description is culturally offensive.

Was that the INTENTIONAL end? No. That answer is NOT culturally offensive. Things rarely go as planned when we only control a fraction of a percent on a planet that makes up a fraction of a percent of the observable universe. But does the ends justify the means? That answer IS culturally offensive.

And I hate not being able to answer questions just because someone is bound to get butthurt over it.

If you can't comprehend what I said, then take your emotional negroid ass out off the Internet and get back to the simple grunt work of life where you can run up against brick walls all day and learn nothing.

Get the fuck off my internet
Get the fuck out of my science
Minorities with microphones are the most dangerous population in history and should be exterminated on sight.

Correct, drapetomania is pseudoscience. His theory was a pseudo theory.
It was nothing more than his conjecture for racial management. i.e. Utterly factless, racist minded, and falsified.

Evolution is a THEORY.

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First you have to learn what that word "theory" means in the scientific realm.

So I'll have to stop you right there. See you've been told that "evolution is just a theory", a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven. You've been misled. And by the time you finish reading what I have to say you'll know that you've been misinformed. I'm not going to try and change your mind about evolution. I just want to point out that "it's just a theory" is not a valid argument.

The Theory of Evolution is a theory, but guess what? When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use. That's right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations. It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, they collect facts, or observations, they use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that they've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

Evolution is the same. There's the fact of evolution. Evolution "genetic change over generations" happens, just like gravity does. Don't take my word for it. Ask your science teacher, or google it. But that's not the issue we are addressing here. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is our best explanation for the fact of evolution. It has been tested and scrutinised for over 150 years, and is supported by all the relevant observations.

So next time someone tries to tell you that evolution is just a theory, as a way of dismissing it, as if it's just something someone guessed at, remember that they're using the non-scientific meaning of the word. If that person is a teacher, or minister, or some other figure of authority, they should know better. In fact, they probably do, and are trying to mislead you. Evolution is not just a theory, it's triumphantly a theory!

Big Bang, Dust Cloud, Evolution, etc... they're all JUST theories... whether you want to accept that nominative description or not is up to you.

The only thing is that evolution hasn't been disproven yet... it doesn't mean that it is correct... I have a problem with mainstream media and schools teaching it as if it were fact or LAW, when it is NOT... it's intellectually dishonest.

Wrong it's not semantics you think it is because you are an uneducated person on the subject. evolution is not just a theory. Evolution is a verifiable fact. natural selection is but one theory trying to explain this verifiable fact. You just provided you didn't read shit said nor did you do very well in school.

Your Ad hom and strawman: Menaz is a clueless republican (which you're assuming) who calls evolution a fact like christians call God a fact. Wrong. That implication showcases your lack of knowledge between the two. Evolution is a observable verifiable fact. which one can observe as a verifiable fact. God is an abstract ontological argument. Which one can not observe as a verifiable fact.

Hence: (Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts.)

The part where I believe is in the theory of natural selection which is the explaination you meant to say hasn't been disproven yet. Even smart christians have acknowledge evolution is an observable verifiable fact. But the explaination they give for the fact of evolution is the theory of Intelligent design. Which has been discredited as nothing more than pseudoscience. The problem is you don't sceintifically understand the word "FACT". Evolution is a Fact, natural selection is one of the best theories explaining this Fact. The facts don't go away just because the theory for the facts can. I can't spell it out any easier or clearer, Unless I bust out the children blocks for you. There is no room in science for your confirmation bias.

If you can't comprehend what I said, then take your emotional negroid ass out off the Internet and get back to the simple grunt work of life where you can run up against brick walls all day and learn nothing.

Get the fuck off my internet
Get the fuck out of my science
Minorities with microphones are the most dangerous population in history and should be exterminated on sight.

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just like a fuckin peckerwood...all that rage and anger built up but aint got the balls to man up and say it to'em in real life...speak your mind next time you see a black person you damn devil...let'em know how u feel and quit being a bitch about it...airing out your feelings on a fuckin messageboard.

you're a product of the poison...shut the fuck up and just know that i know that you only speak tough on the computer, coward

First, most of y'all need to be banned for slurs, including barnizzle here and ghet in past threads.

Ignorant is...well...ignorant. Menaz, while often times dead ass wrong, is correct here. Evolution has moved from "theory" to "fact" pretty much. It's actually republicans and fascists who tend to believe otherwise, not the other way around, Ig. Natural Selection IS a theory set to support the fact of evolution.

As for ghet, I'm convinced he doesn't know the meaning of most of the words he says, and I come to that conclusion having known him in person. What I find hilarious here is that he speaks against Ignorant here when he says:

Racism had to be justified "scientifically" in order to ease any possible white guilt during and after slavery.

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but then follows up with:

scientifically speaking, what Europeans did to Africans was culturally terrifying, but genetically advantageous. They separated them from their otherwise homogeneous gene sharing (average African travel was no more than a handful of miles per LIFETIME) , allowed them to spread genes to the wide variance of tribal ethnicities as they were all collected into a single society, culled the weak with hundreds of years of hard labor, and then allowed this genetically-unique, psychologically-customized population to participate in the civilization they helped create. That is scientifically accurate, yet, my description is culturally offensive.

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Which is actually inaccurate on many different levels, and culturally offensive. Had it been accurate, he would have had a point, but it simply just is not. It is more drivel from someone trying to asuage their own "white guilt" with a bunch of big words that pile up to nothing.

1. Anthropologists and geneticists have proven that Africans had travelled the world long before Europeans had even escaped their own shaddows in caves. In fact, Europeans evolved FROM Africans who had travelled north. Therefore, the idea that we were somewhere walking in circles with clubs before the great though culturally offensive slave traders showed up is nonsense.

2. To piggy back off of 1, Many of these slaves were prisoners of war; that is to say, warriors brought to the coast from the interior of subsaharan africa. These were not the weak members of African society, but their strongest. The fact that they were captured in war does not mean they were weak. We have a lot of extremely strong people who have been held captive before, and there is a damn good chance one will become leader of the free world come November.

3. The idea that these "weak" africans were made strong through slavery gives entirely too much credit to the institution of "slavery". It takes essentially a thousand years for any one group of people to "evolve" into something we would deem a different race, and it would require a serious change in environment. That is to say that if slavery had continued in the western world for AT LEAST another 800 years, Ghet may have something. But he doesn't. Slavery only went on in the western world for 2 maybe 3 hundred years, not nearly enough to change who blacks were before the slave trade had begun in the 1500s. Even with the introduction of Animal Husbandry practices, such cannot come of slavery. If all you have are weak negroes who are incapable of travelling more than a few miles in their lifetime, then all the animal husbandry in the world will not make them stronger. They'd have ALL died out. You know, like the other peoples that Europeans tried to enslave before they decided on Blacks. Other europeans were great at dying because they were too weak for the task. Indians were better, but not much. West and Sub-Saharan africans were PERFECT, and were selected not because of their weakness, but because of their strength. Again, the fact they were captured is not an indication of their weakness. Every mighty beast that has ever been captured by man has been captured by a weaker being. Slavery was no different.

And as far as barnizzle saying ghet only talks tough on the net? All I'mma do is shake my head and laugh. All I know is I got my shit, finally. Who knows what would happen next if our paths were ever to cross, now that I'm not a cash cow for him and he doesn't have any of my shit hostage (per se). If me and Ghet ever ran into each other now, it would be two different people than ever before, man. We'd have no reason to get along besides general comportment. *shrug*

Oh, and to Ignorant: While racism/slavery had to be justified scientifically in order to belay white guilt, it also was justified religiously and economically. To echo Ghet a little here, white captors in a sense convinced themselves they were saving the savages from themselves. They were showing them the one true God, while failing to realize that European permutations of what that one true God is was merely a bastardization of the early African church in the first place. In a sense, they got God from tthe very same people they proclaimed to be showing God to.

Economic:
they were not being racist, they were showing these savages a better life in the new world. They clothed them, fed them, sustained them, and in return of this "investment", the captors got free labor that was self-generating, hence increasing their position in the burgeoning global market. CURRENT permutations of this theory states that had it not been for Slavery, Blacks would not have been in this wonderful country of ours: America. Again, this all ignores key points:

1. Had it not been for Blacks being brought here, America would be a fucking forest. They had already tried everyone else to work the lands and no one was capable of doing it well enough except the African with his strong back. America would have had to have paid for it's labor like everyone else, hence cutting into their profit margins. We won't even get INTO the strides made by Africans in america SINCE the advent of slavery (and also before the advent of Europeans coming here) in the fields of science and technology dating back hundreds of years. Suffice it to say that there would be no great America without the input of blacks, so bringing us here did not put us in a better position than we had been.

Furthermore, Africa would not be the wasteland it is today had the europeans not raped and underdeveloped it in the first place, dating from antiquity all the way to the right damn now. It wouldn't have been a utopia, mind you, but what is? It is the continent richest in raw materials, precious stones and the most ancient of civilizations; ones tht were more developed probably than what we currently know today in the new world.

Yeah, thanks for "saving us".

so there are many justifications that have been presented for slavery and the concurrent and subsequent racism; but like Ghet's failed attempt at stating scientific fact, such "justifications" can be toppled even by those of us who have degrees and advanced degrees in areas that have nothing to do with science and technology...

Oh, and to Ignorant: While racism/slavery had to be justified scientifically in order to belay white guilt, it also was justified religiously and economically. To echo Ghet a little here, white captors in a sense convinced themselves they were saving the savages from themselves. They were showing them the one true God, while failing to realize that European permutations of what that one true God is was merely a bastardization of the early African church in the first place. In a sense, they got God from tthe very same people they proclaimed to be showing God to.

Economic:
they were not being racist, they were showing these savages a better life in the new world. They clothed them, fed them, sustained them, and in return of this "investment", the captors got free labor that was self-generating, hence increasing their position in the burgeoning global market. CURRENT permutations of this theory states that had it not been for Slavery, Blacks would not have been in this wonderful country of ours: America. Again, this all ignores key points:

1. Had it not been for Blacks being brought here, America would be a fucking forest. They had already tried everyone else to work the lands and no one was capable of doing it well enough except the African with his strong back. America would have had to have paid for it's labor like everyone else, hence cutting into their profit margins. We won't even get INTO the strides made by Africans in america SINCE the advent of slavery (and also before the advent of Europeans coming here) in the fields of science and technology dating back hundreds of years. Suffice it to say that there would be no great America without the input of blacks, so bringing us here did not put us in a better position than we had been.

Furthermore, Africa would not be the wasteland it is today had the europeans not raped and underdeveloped it in the first place, dating from antiquity all the way to the right damn now. It wouldn't have been a utopia, mind you, but what is? It is the continent richest in raw materials, precious stones and the most ancient of civilizations; ones tht were more developed probably than what we currently know today in the new world.

Yeah, thanks for "saving us".

so there are many justifications that have been presented for slavery and the concurrent and subsequent racism; but like Ghet's failed attempt at stating scientific fact, such "justifications" can be toppled even by those of us who have degrees and advanced degrees in areas that have nothing to do with science and technology...

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and bush wouldnt be president if a comet hit and destroyed the earth in 1967